Another day I was reading an Instagram post from an Ashtanga yoga teacher…Outro dia estava lendo o Instagram de um professor de Ashtanga…

He was saying that Ashtanga teachers who haven’t attended classes in Mysore should not be allowed to teach Ashtanga. In a few lines he showed his concern about these people and what they might be causing to the Ashtanga tradition.

If you have never heard about Ashtanga yoga, just let me give you a brief introduction on the subject.

A century ago, a master yogi and teacher rumored to live in the mountains beyond Nepal at the foot of Mount Kailash . One day a man called Tirumalai Krishnamacharya reached him after walking for two and half months. Krishnamacharya was seeking for the teacher because he wanted to learn from him. He spent seven and a half years studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, learning asanas –yoga poses-and pranayama –breathing exercises with Yogeshwara Ramamohan Brahmachari. When Krishnamacharya finished his studies he asked his teacher how much he should pay, but Ramamohan did not want his money . Instead he told Krishnamacharya to go out into the world, get married, have children and teach yoga. Hmmmm…. What does Ashtanga yoga have to do with all this? We are almost there…

Krishnamacharya fulfilled his teacher wishes. He got married, had kids and started teaching. Lots of students came to learn from him, among them Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois .

At the age of 12 , Pattabhi Jois attended a lecture by Krishnamacharya and became his student on the very next day. They stayed together for the next two years until Krishnamacharya left town.

After a couple of years Pattabhi Jois teacher returned to Mysore and established a yoga shala in the city. Krishnamacharya and his student remained together until 1941.

In 1948 with the help of his students, Jois purchased a home for himself and his family. From 1937 to 1973 he taught yoga at the Sanskrit College of Maharaja. At 1948 he created the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute and devoted himself fully to teach yoga there until he died.

Coming back to the Instagram account of that Ashtanga yoga teacher, I kept myself thinking about what he posted.In the meantime tons of comments starting popping out and they have made the teacher came up with another post. He was sorry for what he wrote before and his intentions were all focused on protecting the real practice.

But what is the real practice? Can it be put in a box or in a set of rules? Who can become a yoga teacher? What kind of experience or learning validate you as teacher?

Honestly I don’t have one straight answer to all of these questions, we could keep talking about them for hours. But I do believe that good yoga teachers can keep the yoga tradition and improve it just by being who they are and doing their best. Avaluating a person focusing only at where or with whom he has been studying , leaves the person character and his power out of the process. It is like telling the world that your value is based on the people and places you have learned from, instead of being on yourself as a whole package. For sure we carry all of our teachers inside of us, but the way we grasp their knowledge it is very unique and almost a 100 percent dependable on us.

Let’s hope that more and more yoga teachers can deliver the real experience for the students and as a yoga teacher community we can honour this ancient practice through true love and devotion.

1 Comment

Of course not all yoga teachers are able to carry on that tradition. But it yoga was ALWAYS traditional, there would be no innovation and perhaps fewer lives would be positively changed because of it. I know a bunch of people that take class at CorePower (a corporate, sterile yoga studio chain in the US.) The people that take class there aren’t looking for THE experience of Indian yogis back in the day. They’re just looking for a way to feel good and cope in the current society. There are likely many teachers who will never be able to afford a trip to Mysore, yet they’re spreading the yogi lifestyle wherever they live.